There are so many things I'm not good at.
And apparently I have an inner monologue determined to record each and every one of them.
There's a voice in my head that tells me I'm not enough. Some days it's quiet and some days it's super shouty.
It's the strangest thing to discover the back of your brain muttering mean things to yourself.
The whisper is so soft, so ordinary, so normal that I rarely stop to investigate. I just let the words run through my veins until they seem like a normal part of my DNA.
You'll never measure up.
You're too much.
You're hard.
You'll never achieve anything worthwhile.
Your words won't match up to hers.
You can't do that.
You're just not good at this.
I heard that voice in the car today, as the clouds moved in and it began to drizzle. I was driving toward home. Alone. Maybe that's why I listened without just letting it wash over me. Maybe that's why I tuned in to the nefarious whispering I'd been letting slide up until now.
I listened and I almost couldn't believe what I heard. I was surprised a bit, actually. Kind of amazed that I was still capable, after all these years, of such petty meanness to my own self. Because the thing about that voice is that it's a nit picker. It delights in destroying the DNA of a day, of a dream, of a thought.
But when I tuned in it sounded more and more like static. Fuzzy, harsh, wiry, unforgiving. But small. I have a friend who calls it devil static- the noise that tries to drown out the truth God is speaking into our lives and through our lives. The noise that crackles and cackles and tries to poke fun at who we are becoming; tries to derail us in the name of embarrassment, of shame, of fear.
I told that voice off today.
Talked back to myself in an empty car.
Because I remembered that a Father God who surely loved His son with all the gut-fire with which I will love my own children one day handed Him over to pay my ransom; to rescue me from a brutal kidnapping, He sent His only Son unarmed into the drop spot.
We all know what happened when He arrived.
I called that voice out. And in doing so I could almost hear it deflate. I addressed that voice with my whole attention, my God-inheritance, my royal claim. and I could hear the static fizzling.
I am not nothing.
You are not nothing.
We are daughters and sons. Purchased at a price. Beloved.
And there is a much greater voice. A voice with all the rich, resonant tones of truth so filled with love for us. A voice so unlike that devil static. A voice that will "no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17).
With singing.
Not hissing or criticizing or comparing or mocking.
With singing.
I'm sitting on my grey tweed chair in the corner of the living room and just letting that beauty sink in.
And a new song plays in the back of my head.
Hands down, the question I get asked most often is some version of: "Are you glad you turned down a nursing position?" followed closely by, "What is it exactly that you DO?"
My answer to the first question is always a wholehearted YES.
And my answer to the second question is usually cut off by some sort of assumption.
"oh, that's right. You're the secretary."
"oh, that's right. You're the nanny."
"oh, that's right. You're a barista."
Or my personal favorite: "Oh, that's right. You're the Dutch Bros. nurse!"
So, here's a few answers to set the record straight.
I love my job. I've never loved a job more than I love this job.
I work for Dutch Bros., a drive-thru coffee company chain headquartered in Grants Pass, Oregon with franchise locations across the western United States. More specifically, I work directly for and directly with two of those franchisees.
I'm not a secretary, though some days it feels like it. I answer phone calls, send emails, and keep things organized.
I'm not a nanny. While I love my bosses boys, I'm not their nanny. Chelsea is. And she's fabulous.
I'm not a barista. I don't work in any of our seven stands, though you might see me in and out of them on occasion for various reasons. However, we DO have the best baristas around and I would be proud to work alongside them.
I'm not the Dutch Bros. nurse. HA! Although I did have a conversation with one of the assistant managers last night about icing her knee after running a half marathon. Does that count?!
Now that we've gotten through what I'm NOT, here's what I AM.
I'm a personal assistant for the best entrepreneurs I know. I get to partner with them and champion their dreams and their visions and their goals, and do practical things along the way to see that their business thrives.
And now comes the most obvious question. WHY? Why did I choose this? Why did I turn down an incredible job offer? Why am I "not using" a degree I worked so hard for?
I think the easiest way for me to describe it is to take a look at Abraham's life.
The man chosen by God to become a father of a nation, a man of blessing, of promise. The man that made some serious mistakes in his time.
Like the time he told his wife to pretend she was his sister so the Egyptians wouldn't kill him. And Pharaoh went and made her his wife. Then Abraham did the same thing with her again later on! Interestingly enough, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree. Abraham's son Isaac did the exact same thing with his wife, Rebekah.
And then there was the time when he listened to his wife and took her made, Hagar, into his bed so she would conceive a child for him and Sarah. That didn't turn out so well.
BUT. Abraham was faithful. Even if he was fully human and prone to take matters into his own hands. He loved his Father, and he eventually stopped questioning the promises of God and just obeyed wholeheartedly, trusting Him completely.
And then in Genesis 25:8, we see that Abraham "breathed his last and died in a ripe old age, an old man and satisfied with life."
He died satisfied.
Abraham messed up in some pretty major ways. But he died satisfied with his life.
He was chosen, just as you and I are chosen, for this time in this culture. We are chosen. And when we follow the God who has chosen us, trusting in the calling we may not even know we have over our lives, we will live satisfied. Because what I've learned from Abraham is that maybe being satisfied with our lives isn't so much about the past mistakes or the messes we've made, but the willingness to follow a faithful God with wholehearted devotion.
Maybe living satisfied is about trusting the One who holds all my days.
Maybe living satisfied is about getting up when I fall down, changing direction if need be, and keeping on, gaze set on Jesus.
Maybe living satisfied is about making wide-awake choices, knowing that God lets my decisions stand. My choosing matters.
Maybe living satisfied is about believing that God has a purpose for all my days, planned before the world began, for such a time as this. And my job is to trust Him. To keep moving forward, knowing that nothing is wasted and everything is for His glory and my good.
That's why I chose this job. Because I belong here. Because He gave me peace here.
This is how I'm going to live. With full surrender to Christ, arms high and heart abandoned. Because I want to live a faithful, satisfied life. I want to look back over my life one day, and before I breathe my last breath, feel the peace of satisfaction over my life. I lived well. I followed Jesus. I was faithful.
If you're trying to decide whether or not to step over the edge of "responsibility" and choose into something that's scary, that's risky, thats wild... but there's peace there? I'm your biggest cheerleader.
Your degree, your credential, the letters behind your name? They don't have to define you.
Praying this week for a little more resolve in all of us to be who we were created to be. Unapologetically. Fully. Relentlessly.
